


A Ghost Story

by idelthoughts



Series: Tumblr Ask Box Fic [9]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Afterlife, Death, Doppelganger, Gen, Ghosts, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:07:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3755569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idelthoughts/pseuds/idelthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens between death and rebirth is even more complex than Henry thought.  He's been leaving pieces of himself behind, right from the start...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ghost Story

**Author's Note:**

> Set in 1x11, right after Adam kidnaps Henry and Henry drowns in the cab.

Henry gasped and broke from the water, frantically kicking and flailing. He was free of the cab—he was free. The animalistic panic was still blinding him, and it took a moment for him to shake it off and focus. He had to get out of the water. He had to—

_What the bloody buggering hell?_

He wasn’t in the usual location under the bridge. He was in the same place where the cab had sunk into the river. More importantly, he was still dressed. Had he escaped somehow? Broken his way free, then drifted up and survived through pure luck?

Henry swam his way to the shore with steady, strong strokes and pulled himself from the river beneath the pier, clambering upwards. The water shed from him like a layer stripping off him, and when he stood on the pier and looked down at himself, he was dry. Bone dry, perfectly so, his clothing tidy and un-rumpled.

“Oh, not that scarf. I liked that scarf.”

Henry’s attention snapped up at the sound of a voice and he took a startled step back—and another, at the sight that greeted him. Facing him, arms crossed, in a charcoal suit better fit for summer than the chill December weather, was Henry himself. Large as life, looking very cross and disapproving.

Henry had no words. He looked over his shoulder for some kind of hint, looking around for any sign of a trick, or some deception. What was going on?

“No, it’s not a trick, an illusion, or hallucination. Yes, you died. No, you didn’t miraculously escape.” The eerily perfect image of him ticked off each item on his fingers, then waved his hand in a jaunty greeting, morphing to a friendly smile. He knew that smile—forced. He’d practiced it in the mirror enough times, and it never had taken on the shine of sincerity. “Welcome to the club.”

“What club?” Henry finally found his voice, stepping towards the apparition. “What is happening?”

“Henry Morgan’s Past Lives Club. Club Dead. Whatever you want to call it.” He sighed. “And now I know why welcoming committee is such a tedious job. Fortunately I only have to do it once.” A rather more pointed grin took over, and he narrowed his eyes at Henry, nodding his head towards him. “You get it next, so pay attention.”

And now Henry could pin the outfit - the one he’d lost the night when Adam cut his throat in the basement of the Frenchman’s shop. A rather unpleasant picture was coming to mind, and he patted his clothes again, checking himself over. Still perfectly dry, not at all the look of a man who’d crawled from the filthy Hudson. As though it had never happened. But he’d drowned, he’d come from the water—

“Ah, yes. Now you’re getting it.”

“We’re—“

“Dead. Quite dead. And yet, not gone.”

“Then why are you—“

“There’s a new one of us each time I die.”

Henry paled, staggering, and his welcoming committee hopped to action, coming forward to direct him towards the mooring bollard and urge him to sit. He straightened, looking down at Henry with vague sympathy.

“Apparently it’s harder after some deaths. Frame of mind when we die.” He looked out towards the water, where bubbles were still rising to the surface from the cab immersed below. “That wasn’t pleasant, by the look of it.”

“No,” Henry rasped, still numb. He could still feel the phantom rush of water into his lungs, an unpleasant echo of his first death. “No, not really.”

“Adam has a talent.”

Henry looked up into his own face, at the stress lines and unhappy, inward focus. He remembered Adam’s knife slicing through his neck with quick precision, and how the death had lingered with him for weeks after. He shook his head fiercely and tried to jog his thoughts into action.

The wind was sharp and biting from the river, and his cheeks and lips felt chapped. His bottom was growing cold from the frigid metal of the bollard, so the world was real. _He_ felt real. The hands that had gripped his shoulders and directed him to sit felt real.

“And now?” he asked.

His doppelgänger shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Now, here we are. We see each other, though no one sees us.” He smiled weakly, but again—rather unconvincing. “But, at least you have yourself for company.” He removed a hand from his pocket and made an expansive gesture. “All of you. Well, not here, right now. Like I said, you get your last death as a greeting. Apparently we worked that out as a system early on. Terribly equitable of me, I must say. But we’re out there, scattered around.”

“ _Every_ death?” Henry stood. “Surely not—“

“Surely so. Trust me, you do not want to meet Number One. He did not take it well.” He cleared his throat and looked to his feet.

Henry shook his head, the unreal glaze of the situation fogging his rational thought. He started to back away, but the mirage did not follow him. He looked resigned, as though he were expecting this, but Henry didn’t care what he thought. Surely this was a delusion.

“No. This is a—a trick of some kind. This isn’t real. I’m leaving, this is insanity.”

He shut his mouth abruptly when the other him echoed his last words with the precise cadence, but with a tired and bored tone.

“Yes, yes. I know. Do what you must—god knows I did, for all the good it did me. Whenever you decide you want to face your new reality, focus on a death. That seems to connect us. You can speak with whoever you wish.”

Henry shook his head again, panic overtaking him. He was starting to hyperventilate, his breath wheezing through a tight throat.

“Look on the positive side,” the other him said, gesturing to himself. “At least you now know what happens to your clothes.”


End file.
